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"the only issue i can say is that i would have preferred it if the main cable could be unplugged from the camera to make it easier to feed through a wall"

"there are a lot more expensive cameras out there but this one does the job"

"i found this to be utterly useless for me"

"the camera definitely meets my needs it has worked through rain and snow without any connection issues at all"

"the power cable on the plug is quite long but i still had to use an extension"

"the app does not work"

"do not waste your money on this"

"then the one that was working stopped working"

"waste of money only works with wansview apps nothing else not even the ispy app on pc"

"for a cheap camera it is good"

"voice controlled so you can alert intruders whilst you're away from home"

"not a huge issue but could be better"

"my first camera had issues i think it ended up becoming water logged after we had terrible rain and the night vision was glitching however customer service sent out a brand new one with a week or so"

"they only positive aspect of this camera is that it has decent picture quality but pretty much everything else makes this camera an utter waste of money"

"the set up wasn’t as smooth as expected on the first day to account registration activation failure delay"

"but by far the worst thing is that every now and then the camera goes off line"

"it’s really frustrating that this camera doesn’t work with an nvr"

"when i went through the set up to connect to wifi camera would only work for about 20 seconds and then cut out i had to unplug to reset i was a bit disappointed with the camera i found the email for support and emailed to my surprise i had a answer after about a hours it was sunday with clear instruction"

"it takes forever to login and doesn’t work times out most of the time"

"the 10 second limit extreamly affects the use of the product"

"no answer waste of £25 company wrote to me to offer a refund plus £10 to remove the comment on amazon"

"my biggest disappointment is with the wansview cloud app both on my phone and pc version"

"the worst camera iv had not happy at all "

"2 only one user can log in and view the camera at a time which is extremely annoying and useless"

"it keeps losing connectivity and keeps turning off"

"the only small issue is that it can be a bit too sensitive to anything moving like grass or rain"

"i know a poorly made item when i see it"

"i’ve got a few other wansview cameras and cannot fault them and the customer service is excellent i would absolutely recommend it"

"* the camera shuts down without you realizing it but there would be chunks of gaps of missing footage i wouldn't recommend this camera to anyone i know"

"my only gripe is the app although it works it will not work on older android devices"

"the only downside is the really chunky wires that need drilling through the wall!"

"sensitivity adjusted it's not all plain sailing hence the 3 5 stars"

"i realized that by then the 30 day trial had expired even without even turning on the camera and that company had taken the annual subscription charge from me through paypal"

"though i can see it being useful for those that require this feature for £30 the camera is extremely good value for money it isn't cheap flimsy plastic rubbish like most are for this price"

"not what you’d usually expect from a lesser known chinese brand"

"being returned my wifi is 5g so doesn't work"

"i got it on but then the app didnt work"

"i believe this has a few major drawbacks"

"it connects but drops immediately"

"a static picture seems good quality but when there is movement you get lag drift & pixel distortion more often than not"

"i had a little problem setting the camera up as it would not read the qr code but after contacting customer support they suggested printing the code bigger which did the trick"

"no mention was made in the selling literature that you had to subscribe to an separate i cloud storage facility"

"1st was wifi dropping out accepting that maybe a signal strength issue so opted for a wired connection and reconfigured it to suit"

"only thing is if you have poor wifi like me it does take a while to load but it is still recording whilst loading"

"app very clunky"

"eg a indecent happed and it was not captured on my camera because the camera stopped filming at that point"

"guess will have to return this if i dont get my verification email by the morning"

"* another thing i found annoying is the camera will automatically cut after a few minutes during recordings which will reflect in some missing footaging that may have been useful"

"i know this w4 outdoor camera isn't the most expensive but i was hoping for a little better as i have the k2 indoor camera which i am very happy with"

"the major down side is the cloud storage it’s very expensive and only one user from the household can view the cloud storage"

"as far as the camera is concerned adding it to the app and putting it into operation was very simple"

"but once it was fitted up on the outside wall problems began"

"the ball joint for adjusting angle makes much easier to fit and the camera itself is much smaller and has alexa functionality that works great shame this couldn't be added for existing models however one of the biggest issues for me is old cameras and new cameras have to be operated on separate apps which for someone who already has many wansview cameras doesn't work for me"

"i would like to use my own client app or at the very least be able to login via a browser"

"as this was my first time using an app based wifi camera i was intrigued to find out how "much hassle" it would be to set up"

"not difficult but slightly annoying"

"it is smaller than i thought it would be and smaller than the ezviz but that doesn't matter"

"purchased this wifi camera as my last one failed"

"wansview w4 the camera came with all the fixing require to install it to the wall the cable is a little to short to get through the cavity but that’s not a deal breaker i have not tried the cloud based software yet but once i get round to it i will test out the 30 day free trial then its only around £6 and month after that great for security in mind there also a motion detection service that’s free your phone pings every time something passes its path"

"they offer a 30 day free trial cloud recording service"

"took me a couple of hours getting 1 of them up and running then wasted a day trying to get the the other one working then wasted ages again trying to go through it all again with their support"

"looking at the app reviews it seems a lot of people have had the same problem"

"sometimes it takes a little patience for the wifi connection to take place but once set up there should be no further issues and you can keep track of the camera via any ios or android device with the app installed"

"that said i'm overall satisfied with these despite the constant resetting it's still a deterrent in itself and nobody knows of the cameras are working or not unfortunately neither do i half the time until i look at the app"

"i had to leave the ethernet cable hanging outside as i can't drill that much without being worried about structure"

"then a much smaller hole could be drilled"

"ok it's a bit here and there with this type app is awlful drops off when it feels like but the picture night vision and install of it is pretty simple app is getting worse need vital evidence no ya can't get it with this it's dreadful"

"when it arrived and i opened the box i was very surprised with how sturdy it felt and all its accessories i had a little trouble setting it up so contacted the customer service who were absolutely brilliant they suggested ways to sort it out which worked a few days later they checked up just to make sure it was working which i appreciated"

"overall problem solved really satisfied with the product despite my old review because great customer service really does change the game and of course the product itself is doing its job pretty well now that its working"

"fixings supplied are good the cons i feel with this product are: lack of installation instructions and information on how best location needs a large diameter hole for the ethernet plug may require specialist drill if mounting on brick wall would be better is settings enabled adjusting how long video clips are recorded for on motion detection the default is a bit on the short side for my liking"

"the camera meet my needs it has really good night vision but it is sensitive to raindrops and small insects buzzing around"

"first as the camera is connected to the internet rather than being only accessed locally it exposes a lot of security risks it might get hacked"

"we are no longer running to the window as nosey neighbours at every noise from paranoia"

"4 the login server is extremely slow and unreliable"

"these cameras are just great value great picture quality both night and day my only slight quibble is the cabling supplied is bulky at the camera and very short "

"i would think with recordings with that layout there should be a next button that allows you to jump to the next clip"

"downside is that motion detector is quite sensitive to wind blown leaves cobwebs etc"

"the wansview cloud app is pretty basic but provides all that is necessary for a simple cloud based camera operation at a budget price"

"i just followed the instructions and had the device running within ten minutes i think the most difficult part was having to point the actual camera at my tablet which was displaying a qr code that was part of the set up process just had to have a little patience steady hand and good aim it has now been running outdoors for ~6 weeks it is monitoring a robin nesting box with no issues at all"

"i find this is the biggest downside to this camera and if recording time could be extended to 20 secs or more then i would have given this camera 5 stars"

"the only thing it does not have is sound"

"even to try the 30 day free trial you have to provide your paypal account nice little earner there from all those forgetful people like me that start the free trial and then forget to cancel it before it runs out "

"it's a ok camera could be improved theres a massive delay when someone goes by or a car by the time the camera shows a object passes it has already happen 30 seconds before"

"the ball joint for adjusting angle makes much easier to fit and the camera itself is much smaller and has alexa functionality that works great shame this couldn't be added for existing models however one of the biggest issues for me is old cameras and new cameras have to be operated on separate apps which for someone who already has many wansview cameras doesn't work for me"

"finally after i complained my camera misteriously stopped even powering on"

"camera was ser up for wireless operation using my bt5 hub"

"just a shame the wifi signal was not strong enough to set it up without wires"

"* another thing i found annoying is the camera will automatically cut after a few minutes during recordings which will reflect in some missing footaging that may have been useful"

"mounting the camera was a breeze just had to align and finalise where i wanted it drilled the holes and used the rawplugs provided then mounting the camera to the 3 holes drilled and then screwing it down"

"honestly people say you can't put a price on safety but for less than £30 i can't see why everyone doesn't have them!"

"it just means that the hole needed to pass the cable through will need to be quite large 65mm at the largest point ethernet cable end and with no way to disconnect it from the camera body left with no choice"

"i bought this on amazon because it stated it was half price but after finding it for £20 on ebay clearly this is not half price at all the image is great and the night vision too there is sadly no audio recording on this the app is useless unless you pay for the cloud too store your videos as from the"

"eventually connected it to ethernet updated firmware camera connected but no image"

"i cant help but feel the way the software is designed is to make you buy cloud storage and stop you from recording by other means as unlike previous models you cannot set cameras to write to a hard drive via ftp which offered a low cost recording solution"

"i haven't tried the cloud storage yet as for my needs is is less important"

"* the camera shuts down without you realizing it but there would be chunks of gaps of missing footage i wouldn't recommend this camera to anyone i know"

"what it doesn’t tell you is that if you want to benefit from the full use of it then you need to sign up and pay for cloud storage and only payable using paypal"

"really disappointed to camera i’ve had before 😞"

"i run several websites and they use webcams to provide tourist information"

"what puts me off is that it is a hong kong website you have to pay for storage and also there is a small delay on the camera with cars going past about a two second delay but not a problem"

"sending it back as it may work well but not as described"

"i had trouble at first when connecting the app to my camera but this was because my wifi signal was weak"

"nb if you have a dual band router which most modern ones are you will have to disable the 5ghz band temporarily whilst you set the camera up as the phone has to be on the same band as the camera ie 2"

"it does integrate with alexa but this is much too slow and laggy to be much use"

"doesn’t make sense"

"the image quality is pretty good even in the infrared by that i mean you can recognise a face easily but there is no zoom feature to restrict field of view i wanted to exclude the neighbours property "

"impossible to connect"

"camera was easy to set up and now waiting for lambing to start in late january!"

"i can’t use a wired lan cable as i have no method of routing it i rent so can’t just drill holes 3"

"the aerial kept falling down wouldn't stay upright even though i tried nipping it with a ba spanner"

"this review is based purely on lack of functionality"

"all i can say is that i was not disappointed with this in the slightest!"

"this has been a problem with most of the outdoor cameras i've had so it's not an issue specific to this model"

"find the right area you want to site the camera and then follow the clearly written instructions in good english drill holes screw it up to the wall ceiling wherever"

"now i can see any suspicious activities around my house from anywhere in the world"

"slight delay but nothing major"

"4ghz broadband as 5ghz will not work"

"the reviews for the app are appaling and i wish i'd seen these before buying"

"only downside i would say depends though on the use case is that it's missing a microphone"

"but despite the settings saying i have got the alert set it doesn’t alert me"

"so far we have seen a cat and hedgehog at night and lots of birds 😊😊"

"as a diy novice i was a little skeptical but the instructions are clear and very straight forward"

"the update kept on failing over wifi even after leaving it for 3+ hours"

"this alone makes the cameras unreliable"

"i purchased this for security for my business and had tried a number of other cameras from other companies which i had to send back to them as i was not happy with them"

"disappointing given i'd already said a don't use paypal to the same person and in the same chain of emails this should not have been offered or at least they should have been upfront about this in the first place if they are unable to refund the same way it was paid for"

"update do not fall for the email scam they send you"

"this was also a painful experience"

"i'm also reluctant to subscribe to the cloud fees as the picture quality isn't great"

"has had the firmware updated and the echo shows are the only items that run on wireless everything else is ethernet cabled"

"we are no longer running to the window as nosey neighbours at every noise from paranoia"

"i bought 7 on sale and you get what you pay form if you are technically bad with computers this may frustrate you"

"terrible product"

"it has a little weather cap to help take the glare of the sun out of the shot and to stop rain dripping on the lens"

"after googling and trying!"

"i should add i have done many checks of my devices and wifi with no improvement"

"absolute piece of junk"

"returned as utterly useless to me"

"there is one cable from the camera which splits into 3 at the end providing connections for power ethernet and an external re set button"

"not a huge issue but could be better"

"i have turned off the notifications on my app which works well but doesn't suit me"

"customer service seems non existent and the online faq is poorly translated c from chinese"

"4 the login server is extremely slow and unreliable"

"biggest gripe?"

"what the hell is this!"

"buyer beware!"

"and the thing that works for us is we can look at them any time but only one of us gets the notification when the camer is triggered so we are not being distracted at work evt"

"can’t fault the camera the app or customer support"

"wansview cloud app is very easy to use the one feature which attracts me that you have to invite other users to login independently and it’s not like that i had to give my password credentials for others to login which is extra security feature"

"so takes short recordings when it senses motion i did buy 2 of these the one for out the back is ro keep an eye on the kids and dogs"

"for my installation would have been better if it did not have a plug just bare wires to install in a connected box"

"it also lights up red at night to help deter people away"

"we did have issues with setup and connecting to the wifi and please note that you do need 2g to connect the camera to as it doesn't connect to 5g"

"you can find which i did later when i returned mine much better options for an extra 5 or 10£ with 2 antenas tf card storrage and even some free cloud storage app the camera connects it self"

"slight lag on live feed but the picture really makes up for it"

"after using this for over a month i have had some major issues with it"

"this makes it fairly useless for my needs and the intention is to return it"

"the only negative thing i could mention is the size of the hole needed for the cables as i expected to use only the camera with wifi i did not need to use the ethernet cable "

"detection is so sensitive even the smallest bug can be detected i am so impressed i have already ordered another one cloud storage is great too and 3 options to suit your budget many systems don't offer you that"

"anyways there is a slight reflection from the window but it's nothing major"

"mounting the camera was a breeze just had to align and finalise where i wanted it drilled the holes and used the rawplugs provided then mounting the camera to the 3 holes drilled and then screwing it down"

"the picture is very clear and faces are recognisable"

"not do great if someone decides to come and cause havoc and then are not captured in the act!"

"these drop outs can last from a few minutes to a few days"

"motion detection algorithm is not good though"

"the issues i encountered were down to my error not the device"

"i have already subscribed and paid for the cloud service £65 total per annum for 1 3 cameras but you can pay an additional subscription for 5 or even 7 external cameras which works really well as it only records motion and stores it via your wifi straight into the cloud and is kept there for up to 7 days so you can review the recorded footage or current footage from your mobile phone and it has an app alert if it detects movement"

"the only slight downside is that at night it does pick up the motion of moths passing in front of the lens but i am sure if i adjust the motion detection this may change"

"i also set up continuous recording via the cloud based service offered which again is a very low cost annual fee"

"without the app the camera is useless"

"the aerial kept falling down wouldn't stay upright even though i tried nipping it with a ba spanner"

"i ordered the camera so that my parents who are elderly farmers could keep an eye on their handful of breeding sheep who lamb in a small barn next to the farm house"

"so any decent robber just needs to take longer than 10 seconds and the camera will miss them"

"why can't it keep me logged in v"

"ok it's a bit here and there with this type app is awlful drops off when it feels like but the picture night vision and install of it is pretty simple app is getting worse need vital evidence no ya can't get it with this it's dreadful"

"however just recently there was an update to the camera which caused a small problem but have to say after emailing the seller via the app it was resolved within 48hrs"

"i got it for a specific purpose as i have a few problems with my upstairs neighbour and i need proof"

"4g portion of the signal but i had it confirmed by support that this isn't possible"

"shame that these software and cabling issues are letting it down as the picture and night mode is awesome and the hardware quality is one of the best i've see in these budget cameras"

"even contacted me again the following week to make sure problem was rectified"

"but it's not that expensive in fact i thick it's quite cheap"

"hit and miss with the motion detection in only filming the first few seconds of motion control then missing the rest completely"

"the only negative i had was that the lead from the camera for an ethernet connection if you choose to connect it this way is a little short for it to come into the premise through the wall and hence i had to use an ip junction box to house the cable in however this only adds to the look of it overall as it looks more professional"

"this restriction is not immediately obvious"

"also works really well with alexa and my fire stick i will for sure be using this company again highly recommend"

"the worst thing about is the fact that the app it uses has no free cloud storage plus camera also has no no tf card option"

"you will still get hundreds of false alerts all day"

"the cloud service is next to useless too 2"

"if i hear a noise outside by the time i've logged in and the connection sorts itself out whatever or whoever it was are long gone"

"old review i cant even test it out"

"well if you look at the most recent review saying that it’s a great camera especially with the sd storage card ?"

"we bought this to view the wildlife coming into the bottom of our garden and it dies the job well"

"id also like to say the issue of disconnecting wanswiew replaced my first camera and where very very helpful they tried to remotely fix the problem but as soon as they couldn’t the new camera arrived a day or two after they sent it out via amazon priority thank you wanswiew for all your help and product and would buy again without any hesitation"

"how do i return the original camera as it must be under warranty?"

"my motorbike was stolen from my drive and this camera didn't record anything"

"box nothing is stored i i had not already installed this i would be returning it just based on the lie this this was rrp £50 and half price but on ebay are only £20 new"

"clicking on the cloud storage icon read ' did not join any storage plan' though i have made a payment for the plan and have not received any refunds"

"if you buy the pir it is extremely keen so beware where you put it but to be fair that's what it is for "

"it only records motion which can be stored on the actual app cant remember how long for or 7days rolling paid with cloud on a monthly quarterly or yearly plan"

"the ball joint for adjusting angle makes much easier to fit and the camera itself is much smaller and has alexa functionality that works great shame this couldn't be added for existing models however one of the biggest issues for me is old cameras and new cameras have to be operated on separate apps which for someone who already has many wansview cameras doesn't work for me"

"restarted several times checked through settings for ages uninstalled and reinstalled app camera i received would not show an image"

"the drilling pattern sticker made it very easy to get the holes ready for mounting"

"it was fairly easy to set up although my camera would not read the qr code to connect so we had to download the app onto my partner’s phone and then it read it straight away"

"for this price what can you possibly do wrong"

"detection is so sensitive even the smallest bug can be detected i am so impressed i have already ordered another one cloud storage is great too and 3 options to suit your budget many systems don't offer you that"

"on this setting you get nothing else"

"we had to connect them on different routers as our wifi signal didn’t reach the garage "

"detection is so sensitive even the smallest bug can be detected i am so impressed i have already ordered another one cloud storage is great too and 3 options to suit your budget many systems don't offer you that"

"hello all i was using sanview cams but they never worked i looked for something working with alexa and i found the w4 omg took a sec to set up and now i have them in all my kid's rooms and outside i emailed support asking for some help to get all 4 cams to show up on a pc and i had replies from the support"

"we live in quite a wooded area so not a fault of the camera whatsoever"

"a great teething problems setting it up to begin eot"

"also app permissions are alittle odd"

"very disappointing coz i was really looking forward to trying this out"

"can't really go wrong"

"it’s basically you jump through several hoops of reviewing their current product sending screenshots as evidence "

"set up: in the hallway of my flat block so outside but not in the elements"

"good for the money but wouldn’t pay full price although i like it and delivery was fast i don’t like that to record day and night you need to subscribe and the cost is to pricy to keep these running on record every day of the week but it will record movement of up to around 15 seconds iv found some far"

"plus point for the old app it keeps you logged in always!"

"if i had any issues with the camera it's the motion detection which picks up flys even on the lowest setting but it's nothing majorly annoying as i prefer to have that footage"

"restarted several times checked through settings for ages uninstalled and reinstalled app camera i received would not show an image"

"so if you're using it and another family member logs in you get automatically logged out"

"secondly the camera has a big fat cable meaning if you want to install it outside you need to drill a hole about 1 inch in size which is a joke"

"then i found that when someone came up my path it didn't record that!"

"1bout a 10m second lag so not much use to check when someone knocks on the door as they have left by the time the picture comes on the screen phone and alexa unfortunately a good camera let down by having to subscribe for it to be any use payments and laggy response"

"my front security camera installed by an electrician has disintegrated in the heat!"

"wish i could give zero"

"you will need around a 25mm drill bit if fixing no to external wall due to bulky ethernet adapter"

"even to try the 30 day free trial you have to provide your paypal account nice little earner there from all those forgetful people like me that start the free trial and then forget to cancel it before it runs out "

"i gave up on the wifi and ended up forking out more for a wifi extender with an ethernet input so i could wire it"

"we did have issues with setup and connecting to the wifi and please note that you do need 2g to connect the camera to as it doesn't connect to 5g"

"it does integrate with alexa but this is much too slow and laggy to be much use"

"sending it back as it may work well but not as described"

"the camera is cloud only so no internal memory card but the app can be used to save footage to your phone"

"sensitive to motion rain sets it off which is annoying"

"you can adjust the sensitivity i have not messed with this yet but i suspect i can exclude "moths" if i reduce the sensitivity"

"no security reasons for that"

"however this is not a pre requisite as when alerts are triggered a 10sec video is downloaded to your mobile device"

"then comes the crap you have to go buy the camera jump through all their hoops again and then give them your paypal details and they will refund you !"

"it has more wires than my current wired system and you will need to drill a big hole through your wall to feed the thick ethernet dongle through"

"i find this annoying"

"having seen the price of this camera i thought that i would give it a try to the rear of my premises it took a little while to sort it out maybe with everyone else using the internet but with the help from there support team it's a nice little camera"

"i had my doubts about this because it was only £25 but very surprised how brilliant this really is "

"does lack a some bit"

"the camera doesn’t have a very long range to connect to a wireless network plus when it detects any movement the recording stops after only a few seconds"

"3 it take no more the 2 mins for the wifi blue tooth connection"

"i use this camera for viewing the front of my property after a theft of a motorcycle"

"i was a little surprised disappointed that it did not feature onvif rtsp but was advised that they can apply a firmware update to add support for this which means i can add it to my other camera's in ispy"

"have already returned 1"

"the image quality is pretty good even in the infrared by that i mean you can recognise a face easily but there is no zoom feature to restrict field of view i wanted to exclude the neighbours property "

"there is a drilling template provided to assist in correctly locating fixing holes to mount the camera unit outside this was very useful and helped enormously in making a professional job of mounting the camera"

"in the first two weeks of operation there is a bus service goes down past my house and there is only 5 a day hourly mon fri the camera captured the bus a total of three times out of ten events i have little idea what i am doing with it and as i am not rich enough to pay for cloud access i am stuck with just the alerts one night kids tipped over my 4 recycling buckets and again the camera was as useless as a chocolate fireguard ok the night vision is really good as is the picture quality and the motion detection is too good it activated if rain is falling or a light shows from houses on the other side of the large park i live next to but it is still only as good as the times it actually activates at the correct time the lack of instructions with the package did not help either"

"pros= 1 good size not too big 2 well built metal construction 3 excellent pictures both night and day 4 pretty easy to set up cons= 1 cables attached to the camera are too big in diameter shame they can't be detached 2 lots of moths trigger the sensor at night 3 power cable quite short edit"

"this camera should be removed by amazon"

"the front one was ripped off the wall and stolen"

"and i must say wired setup is also a challenge"

"i use it to monitor my front door as i have an office at the bottom of the garden and i can't hear the doorbell"

"nice small camera sometimes struggling with connection tho shame it does not have memory card but i can take still images on my phone when motion is detected as long as the camera is online and loads working 90% of the time and a great deterrent always"

"unable to set camera up"

"if i'd known i wouldnt have bought this item"

"i am sending mine back"

"very old technology"

"what puts me off is that it is a hong kong website you have to pay for storage and also there is a small delay on the camera with cars going past about a two second delay but not a problem"

"clicking on the cloud storage icon read ' did not join any storage plan' though i have made a payment for the plan and have not received any refunds"

"if you want to connect it via ethernet cable then get an extra long one as the only provided is very small"

"the signal was so weak to the internet"

"the camera has a single cable exiting the unit with three short tails 1 a reset button 2 an rj 45 connector for wired ethernet connection and 3 a circular power socket"

"you do though need a watertight bid if installing externally for the plug and other bits"

"although the camera is a good build and quality for the price it's limited to what you can do"

"the camera has been added to the plan as per requirement the support team is a joke and they do not have anyone in the uk"

"forces you to use the new "wansview cloud" app which is a disaster"

"only issue i have is power cord should be white"

"1 extension if you need more length and these are no more expensive than usb cables"

"utterly useless"

"don’t know if that’s the app or 4g or wifi connection issues"

"the power cable is nice and long i have the camera mounted upside down at the top of the window the image can be flipped and the cable runs across the top of the window and all the way to the floor"

"i had purchased this to monitor outside through a window however this does not work"

"don’t waste your money"

"after initiation the update the camera turned off and stopped working"

"waste of money !"

"if you intend to get a cheap camera that supports pan and tilt for your home to monitor things you will not go wrong with the tapo c200"

"from the app on your phone if you are away from home"

"activity zones could be better but i will play with these a bit more before giving up completely"

"so the multiple view is a complete waste of time"

"poor nightvision the ir nightvision is not great!"

"completely waste of money"

"very disappointed"

"this is really annoying as without live streaming you cant keep recording nor is there snapshots or motion"

"have tried everything and every range of sim card yet there is a huge problem"

"crap camera and very noisy!"

"stay away dreadful product"

"here are my other cons glitchy app auto switches from hq to lq no way to stop it notifies with no apparent trigger detection is also over sensitive delays in notifications sometimes hours get 20 notifications from whole day in one go sound is terrible reboots required regular tech support is poor it admittedly is an amazing concept and if a little more effort was made could have been fantastic"

"the instructions are pretty poor i suggest you need to look at this problem personally i would not buy the two together camera is fine on it's own"

"tried hitting the "retry" button and it repeatedly failed far too quickly for it to have even attempted a substantive check"

"whilst the hardware produced by such firms may be ok i always have concerns about the robustness of their software and privacy issues"

"the other niggle was the sd card issue mentioned above"

"it’s almost misleading as during the night it only shows what is directly in front of the camera"

"if notifications are on be prepared to get bombarded but at a delayed rate"

"here are my other cons glitchy app auto switches from hq to lq no way to stop it notifies with no apparent trigger detection is also over sensitive delays in notifications sometimes hours get 20 notifications from whole day in one go sound is terrible reboots required regular tech support is poor it admittedly is an amazing concept and if a little more effort was made could have been fantastic"

"that way the device or memory cards being stolen will not mean the loss of footage"

"crap camera and very noisy!"

"i do not want to have to flag the exact location of the camera as i believe that represents a security issue if the server is compromised"

"i have turned these to the lowest settings which work well but get the odd false alarm"

"the play back is very laggy and not easy to view back recorded footage very time consuming"

"reboot time is fixed at 3am"

"iv had cheap cameras in the past which have concerned me for security reasons"

"it is ok but it won't except the memory card i have tried 2 different cards and i just get an error message saying there is a problem with the card the cards both work in my tablet"

"the camera can be left on auto day night mode or forced permanently into day or night mode"

"then another issue was the camera telling me that the memory card had a problem which turned out to mean it needed formatting first but i found an option in the software that means the camera can do this for you"

"still not operational and now too late as location is shut down due to virus outbreak"

"not sure if this is a coding issue or me being dim"

"the only bit which is let down would be the microphone listening to what's going on through the phone app is almost unintelligible you have to be very close to the camera to understand what someone is saying"

"i dropped the camera from approx 5’ onto concrete snapped one of the bracket lugs but camera itself not damaged and working fine"

"there have been no real issues maintaining a connection and any connectivity problems are solved by exiting the program and opening again this only happens when i switch wifi signals on my phone now and then"

"dont use the auto restart it can randomly completely screw up the setup when it goes wrong and it will use the manual option in the app"

"awesome little camera you are pretty limited and stuck within the tapo app but i’m sure updates will come ie there is no patrol mode just virtual and horizontal scan"

"again it "could only be controlled locally" and the check screen failed instantly on every retry"

"this rubbish is going back cant beleive this cr** is tp link branded"

"to prevent it or help it if it got stolen again i bought this lil camera"

"the box says the unit is a c200 but the app says a kc110 kc115 it is utter junk and i would not engage with tapo or tp link again"

"further in addition to remote access using the tp link camera ios or android app you can also stream live views to any alexa device that has a screen and similar kit from google"

"many false alarms"

"now have no picture assistance useless"

"the picture is fine not any better than the cheap chinese no brand its replacing"

"the main problem is when you try to view more than 1 camera you select a 4 camera window or swipe left it only shows 1 at a time"

"wasted my money with this it works on 2"

"it has two rtsp feeds one 1080p hd and another lesser quality"

"this cause problems at night due to the reflection off the night vision lights"

"i bought this camera after spent hours viewing other people feedbacks"

"it looses connection and freezes even with the app !"

"poor sound"

"may not be ideal as purely security camera unless well hidden"

"this is outrageous advice which would have all sorts of privacy implications which i am not prepared to contemplate"

"good points small cheap records to micro sd card app lets you watch remotely app does seem to work can review saved footage at up to 8x speed bad points motion detection is essentially useless it doesn't detect me walking down our drive but does detect random cars outside of the detection zone"

"another problem to add to the long list"

"this review is likely more about failings with the tapo app and or any underlying apis rather than the device itself which in itself "seemed" functional however since both need to operate seamlessly to effectively utilise the latter the problems described within render the camera virtually unusable"

"i'm using this with a 32gb sdhc card to record video so no ongoing cloud payments"

"i can see how this can be immensely valuable to people with animals that needs to be left on their own or with babies whose parents would like to interact with them without physically disturbing them!"

"i'm still learning with this little fella but whatni did find easier for me is to put it on the 'motion detection' setting for recording as opposed to continuous recording then i don't have to through hours of footage"

"some of the app features can not be used as the camera firmware is not supported which would seem a shame"

"forcing permanent day mode avoids this although it also keeps the camera in lower sensitivity colour recording mode so although better than night mode it still isn't ideal"

"no way to set duration for clips recorded after each trigger it carries on recording way too long"

"but having issues with the mic 🎤 and speaker 🔈 quality isn’t great"

"would have returned for refund but missed the return window"

"paid £25 and is good for that but made in china it’s ok for that price and all works great app is really easy to use shame it does not have a zoom just on the screen can go in more but then comes a mess mic speaker are poor a good starter camera"

"since it was purchased as a baby monitor to use via echo show the picture wasnt bright enough"

"good points small cheap records to micro sd card app lets you watch remotely app does seem to work can review saved footage at up to 8x speed bad points motion detection is essentially useless it doesn't detect me walking down our drive but does detect random cars outside of the detection zone"

"the troubleshooting is lacking instructions"

"4ghz wifi as camera and phone have to be on the same wifi for installation the camera is not 5ghz compatible"

"i can't do much with an item that's got the wrong plug"

"i have a 64gb memory card installed and the biggest benefit from recording video so far has been seeing how many cats use my garden as a thoroughfare"

"camera video stream can be viewed through a google nest hub limited view time only although any other configuration or playback of recordings must be done through the app"

"has anyone else has this problem?"

"motion detection at default level is erratic sometimes no detection even though you walk straight in front of the camera and other times detection with no obvious movement and often delayed"

"after that i’ve tried to reconnect the camera and got all kinds of errors possible it didn’t blink at all then it blinked but the app didn’t see the camera after few times resetting and powering off the app saw the camera but was unable to connect to wifi stating something is wrong with it i have other products by tapo and none of them ever complained about my wifi "

"update: it was just one of the cameras causing the issue"

"in the app it constantly shows the camera as offline or says no internet even though i could stream podcasts radio"

"motion detection at default level is erratic sometimes no detection even though you walk straight in front of the camera and other times detection with no obvious movement and often delayed"

"activity zone adjustment is a gimmick not functional if it sees it it will get recorded basically"

"privacy mode stops the camera recording video and sound"

"if however you have access points and or extenders then it might be a nightmare it will connect to your main router but not to extenders or access points in order to do that you have to disable ap on those devices and the enable it after you have set up the camera"

"i was off down the pub while he slaved away rigging this gadget up"

"having tried it i can see most facial characteristics well enough to be able to make people out in low light situations"

"doesn’t record on auto detect but does detect and sound sounder so fault in unit"

"during daylight this is a fabulous bit of kit but at night it is not much good"

"bad points when logging into the ios app after set up ios tries to use a new suggested password rather than the one already set up and saved in keychain"

"they tried it a couple of months later and it didn’t work and was unable to return as this was outside the return window"

"dose anyone how to keep it recording without the app being opened"

"cannot be beaten in price vs performance"

"zoom not too clever seems to distort the picture"

"i’m very disappointed in tapo!"

"after that i’ve tried to reconnect the camera and got all kinds of errors possible it didn’t blink at all then it blinked but the app didn’t see the camera after few times resetting and powering off the app saw the camera but was unable to connect to wifi stating something is wrong with it i have other products by tapo and none of them ever complained about my wifi "

"the skill app whilst easy to set up is full of bugs the latest one is that even if you turn off notifications it notifies you of every event"

"" this is incorrect privacy mode does not physically close the lens"

"like all similar products can't see through double glazing at night due to infared reflecting off the surface"

"unless our flat is somehow haunted without our knowing these alerts must be bogus"

"there is a strange lens flare possibly because the ir light is too close to the lens and light reflects directly back into the camera"

"i'm going to try one more configuration then if issues still exist i'll be returning both cameras as not fit for purpose"

"a well made camera with clear visuals however the screw down mounting plate is near impossible to disengage so make sure it is correctly aligned before fixing"

"this makes it evidentially useless as a security camera"

"the speaker is reasonably loud for when you want to two way call or alarm however the design choice to put it at the rear of the camera has obvious sound issues"

"the loop function allows it to record continuously so you don't need to worry about having to clear old files or change sd card when full"

"a well made camera with clear visuals however the screw down mounting plate is near impossible to disengage so make sure it is correctly aligned before fixing"

"for shooting through windows at night turn of the auto mode and set it day only this switches the night vision leds off but you will outdoor lighting to compensate"

"in summary i can recommend the tp cameras however please ensure you allow enough time beforehand for ample set up and troubleshooting to avoid future issues"

"i have been on their web site but it doesn't even show me which way round to put the sd card into the slot in the camera"

"much better than i was expecting it to be as i bought it as a visual deterrent due to its size but i’ve been pleasantly surprised by the quality of images captured"

"this is after the latest update that seems to have fixed a few other issues but without a permanent live view i can't give it more than one star as a baby monitor"

"" this is incorrect privacy mode does not physically close the lens"

"easy set up and i'm rubbish with instructions"

"item was faulty sound and mic didn't work"

"i wouldn’t recommend"

"after reducing the motion detection sensitivity to its lowest level and reducing the field of view used to detect motion the alerts are now less frequent but still occur for no apparent reason"

"getting into the "more" section works once every three tries and when there sometimes it fails to show you live feed so have to go out and back in again"

"forcing permanent day mode avoids this although it also keeps the camera in lower sensitivity colour recording mode so although better than night mode it still isn't ideal"

"once can even take a still photo if one wanted"

"i recently had the catalytic converters stolen off my prius and was very p*****off about it!"

"firstly can i say that i am surprised by some negative comments given the price of this camera and what it packs"

"only two minor issues 1"

"i do not want to have to flag the exact location of the camera as i believe that represents a security issue if the server is compromised"

"also when i try and retrieve the recording it shows a small picture icon of the recording but when i try and open it to watch it it opens a black screen with a play button which doesn't do anything"

"if i have one niggle is that if you're using this as a security camera the plug is so easy to undo maybe they should come up with some sort of screw connection with maybe an allen key to tighten so it cannot be easily pulled out apart from this the quality is good but it's a shame you cannot use it with with echo dots without having a fire tv it will be nice just to ask the dot to show the camera and to choose what device you wanted to show on i"

"i bought this camera to replace a baby kimcam and now that i've the tp link tapo i'm going to miss my old camera"

"secondly the live feed is not continuous on your phone evry few minutes it keeps asking permission if you want to continue absolutely horendous device no such issue with yi cameras"

"after that it seems to lose the connection or something went wrong again and i’ve got red light on the app says the camera is offline and the camera doesn’t reset or tries to do anything"

"most other cameras have standardized on micro usb for power but this has its own transformer and connector which i find an inconvenience"

"do not buy the sd suggested as they are defunct and not even the correct format for the camera"

"i note from other reviews that others had similar problems with the 128gb"

"5 allowing the app every permission still no luck"

"lead is not long enough for something like this you would want it up high or in a corner horrible black lead hanging down"

"it would be a 5 star from me if the recorded audio is better i find the audio very poor at a few feet away you cannot make out what i was saying"

"i appreciate that this is the budget end of tp link's range of cameras but even so i was not impressed with the picture quality when compared to similar priced cameras the camera was also jerky and noisy when rotating"

"streaming to google hub is almost impossible as it looses connection or freezes"

"in my kitchen i had a pest control plug attached which had a red light permanently on"

"the only way to record footage is to store it locally on an sd card which is not included"

"can't really recommend as a security camera as no cloud storage meaning a burglar could simply steal the camera and there would be no record"

"within a fornight had to send one back as it failed"

"but i'd rather have too sensitive than not enough"

"for most people i don't know if this would be a problem but it's worth bearing in mind that using something like zoneminder shinobi ispy etc"

"i ended up having to forcibly disconnect my phone from the wifi while the camera was trying to connect"

"when i reinstalled it as an “existing configuration” it failed every time at the end with a black pop up that reads “the network is unstable"

"no sd worked and you keep hearing the same sentence 'there is a problem with the sd card' and failed to format"

"however night vision is not great"

"i'm very impressed at the quality for such a low price"

"as expected the ir lights in night mode are no good as they bounce off the window blocking any image but day mode and some outdoor flood lights connected to a photocell fix my night viewing issue"

"however speaking through the app to the camera sounds a lot better"

"my only quibble is that it notifies you of every little movement"

"won't connect to alexa!"

"i wanted to stream it to a desktop pc & expected that to be a little difficult but if you download the free ispy software it's hardly a problem since the camera is compatible with rtsp & onvif"

"image quality is very good but sound is poor & garbled speech generally unintelligible"

"also able to access from 3rd party ip cam software but without camera positioning"

"the camera could not retain memory positions"

"i have put a memory card in it so there are no subscriptions either"

"however using the free software ispy i have imported the lower quality feeds for motion detection lower quality feeds have less weird video glitches if your camera has poor wifi connection and then i clone it so i have 2 smaller feeds one detecting the front yard another to detect the road"

"very cheap at £24"

"technically this is false"

"the audio recording sounds a bit poor"

"the other issue was that the camera appeared not to be recording clips on detecting motion"

"i would advise to ignore a 128gb and use a 32gb which gives a massive 4 5 24hour recording"

"this item may be sophisticated but when it fails the support instructions are misleading and the help desk are incompetent and do not know the product"

"lastly a few times the camera has been offline the app said it was powered of but i checked the plug and the wifi which had no issues and i had to restart the camera which in theory isn't great when if suddenly something happened or if i didn't check i wouldn't have known"

"the replacement is just a poor"

"at night turn off i fared less and use outdoor pir lights or as i do street lights!"

"the reason i give 1 star is because after 1 month of use the camera started rebooting by itself without any option activated to do so and its very annoying during the night when it does that allmoste eveey hour"

"the problem with this is if you wanted to quickly view all cameras you can't"

"the image looks cloudy and unfocused"

"it was hard choosing because some offer subscriptions or are quite expensive"

"full pan tilt zoom in 1080 hd for £25 tech is so good and cheap these days took me 2 mins to set it up and its great for wildlife watching as in here on the bird feeder or with night vision to see nocturnal ones later brill"

"no preview image of what triggered the cam could have been a cars headlight fox or an uninvited visitor fly tipping by your fence"

"also of forcing you to use an sd you can't even format the old sd you have forcing you to spend a large amount of money to try various brands of which at least with luck one will working"

"most cameras have a ring of at least 6 ir led's surrounding the lens this one only has a line of 4 relatively small leds which don't really give much illumination!"

"thankfully nothing ever did but i goes to show ensure you set up these cameras properly and maybe test them for a week in advance to iron out any kinks"

"i had bought this to use as a baby monitor but found in some houses we visited the wifi didn't stretch to the room and hence didn't work"

"so i bought 2 of these one for my dogs cage upstairs and the cage downstairs because my dog has had a major surgery where i need to see him tplo where he broke a ligament and these cameras have worked the charm they record when he is moving and when it hears sound and the night vision is brilliant i'm"

"if you plan on using it to monitor for an event like a take away delivery dont plan on doing it on an echo show or spot or firestick as it cuts off after about 5 mins its fine on the app though so again its down to low quality skill software"

"for the price it's not going to be beaten"

"the features of the camera are wonderful i wasn’t expecting much but now i have ended up buying a 2nd device"

"the only bit which is let down would be the microphone listening to what's going on through the phone app is almost unintelligible you have to be very close to the camera to understand what someone is saying"

"lastly a few times the camera has been offline the app said it was powered of but i checked the plug and the wifi which had no issues and i had to restart the camera which in theory isn't great when if suddenly something happened or if i didn't check i wouldn't have known"

"i have 2 and have both linked so i only need to swipe the picture on my phone to see the other camera"

"there is no option that your wifi is fine not the option that the camera is wrong"

"it is ok but it won't except the memory card i have tried 2 different cards and i just get an error message saying there is a problem with the card the cards both work in my tablet"

"when i reinstalled it as an “existing configuration” it failed every time at the end with a black pop up that reads “the network is unstable"

"however this also consistently failed after attempting to assign a location to the re added device as did every retry"

"also doesn’t connect to amazon echo dot 5 as stated"

"the app "feels" buggy unstable and immature certainly compared to it's kasa counterpart and in my humble opinion tp link would be better served by consolidating control of kasa and tapo products into their more mature kasa app and api and focusing on the kasa brand"

"it’s by far the worst i’ve seen it is so bad that it might as well not have the function"

"after that i’ve tried to reconnect the camera and got all kinds of errors possible it didn’t blink at all then it blinked but the app didn’t see the camera after few times resetting and powering off the app saw the camera but was unable to connect to wifi stating something is wrong with it i have other products by tapo and none of them ever complained about my wifi "

"and again the device eventually disappeared from the tapo app devices screen leaving me with no recourse but to reset re add it over and over again"

"as soon a it’s more than 6foot from the rooter it pretty much stops working we’ve a full mesh network with boosters and it’s terrible on this"

"i am trying to send it back but amazon only grants returns for a month before it makes you jump through hoops"

"can't really recommend as a security camera as no cloud storage meaning a burglar could simply steal the camera and there would be no record"

"i had problems setting up as could connect to camera as in guide but then kept failing part way through setup then i realised the following"

"that requires port forwarding on the router and this camera doesn't support that"

"even with the sd card installed the camera has a disgusting option that delete the entire motion notification log from the previous day"

"understand that as a security camera there can be a few issues with offline storage as the sd card can just be taken out of the camera can be smashed to bits along with the sd card but as this isn't the main reason for my purchase this doesn't bother me"

"there have been no real issues maintaining a connection and any connectivity problems are solved by exiting the program and opening again this only happens when i switch wifi signals on my phone now and then"

"would be alright for maybe 3 4 metres but anything more is terrible"

"if that's ok for you then really there's little to complain about"

"when motion detection is activated it makes a alarm noise to warn anyone that it is recording"

"so at the end you are stuck wasting a good hour each day going through clips recorded at various playback speeds to see what triggered the cam"

"i like that the sd card is hidden and not easily accessible if you don't know where to look for it"

"all the cheap other ones have issues with the software they use"

"playback for review is difficult as it captures so"

"poor show errors are confusing and contradictory"

"accessing recordings is good compared to others where i could never load recordings "

"i wanted to stream it to a desktop pc & expected that to be a little difficult but if you download the free ispy software it's hardly a problem since the camera is compatible with rtsp & onvif"

"this item may be sophisticated but when it fails the support instructions are misleading and the help desk are incompetent and do not know the product"

"both trigger separate high quality feeds to record and i make it so that if anyone steps on the front of our property the software beeps"

"the software tapo is very handy"

"this is not a first time to buy an indoor camera hopefully don’t broken after a year"

"not sure what i am going to do now?"

"for the price you really can't go wrong"

"however using the free software ispy i have imported the lower quality feeds for motion detection lower quality feeds have less weird video glitches if your camera has poor wifi connection and then i clone it so i have 2 smaller feeds one detecting the front yard another to detect the road"

"when i reinstalled it as an “existing configuration” it failed every time at the end with a black pop up that reads “the network is unstable"

"unfortunately the onvif profile it support doesn't not support ptz or rather pt since this camera has no zoom"

"pan and tilt work well no zoom capability"